Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Goten has Trunks pinned against the couch, his mouth fixed to the exposed flesh of the older boys throat, and Trunks is sure that nothing Other World has to offer could possibly rival the ecstasy he experiences when his best friend's body is writhing against his own.

They've been at this for six months now, at least, officially.

Unofficially it's been years. Childish experiments with their budding interests in sex that they swore meant nothing because they were best friends, and throwing their dynamic off-kilter when they habitually share a single soul ran the risk of rivalling Beerus in it's level of destruction.

What started off as sloppy sessions practicing kissing, and attempts at safely off shooting pent-up energy in a puberty that seemed far more intense and isolating than that of a standard humans, had evolved, quietly and carefully, into something actually substantial and worth setting on its own pedestal. Clumsy sleepover fumbles turned into hot and heavy sessions in the old, out-dated and long abandoned mobile Gravity Chamber, until one day they just decided that a level of exclusivity had to be maintained, and that was that.

He hooks his fingers under the hem of Goten's shirt and tugs up, but the other boys refusal to de-latch means he's unable to get the thing all the way off, so he settles for bunching it up under Goten's armpits and roaming the exposed flesh with his hands. His fingers skim the stump that was once a tail and Goten's hips buck involuntary at the touch. Idly, Trunks wonders what this could have felt like if their parents hadn't made the decision to dock them at birth, how an extra appendage with heightened sensitivity might be a useful tool to play with, but the thought is lost when Goten takes his own back by roughly fisting Trunks' hair just the way he likes it.

“We can't keep this a secret much longer,” Goten mumbles against Trunks' neck, lips coming away from skin with a loud, wet pop, and Trunks knows that there's a monster hickey darkening there as they speak.

“I know.”

There's a lull in the conversation dedicated solely to making out, but before things can escalate Goten pulls back. “Worried about what your dad might think when you tell him you're gay?”

“Bisexual,” Trunks pointedly reminds his best-friend-slash-boyfriend with a huff and a roll of his eyes. His relationship with Mai had been just and real and just as valid until he'd found out that she was older than his parents, and once had an unfortunate habit of trying to put an end to his mother. That and he'd frequently fantasied about Goten's head between his legs while his hand did the real work during sleepless nights. “And no. I think he'll be cool with it. I don't think Saiyans are as hung up on that kind of thing as humans.”

Goten hums in agreement. “So what's the hold up?”

'You, actually' doesn't sound like a response that Goten would want to hear, so Trunks tries desperately to formulate another excuse less likely to hurt the other boy's feelings, but comes up woefully short. There's not really a polite way of saying that he doesn't think that his father will approve of Goten because not only does he happen to be the youngest spawn of Vegeta's life-long rival, but Goten's insistence on calling his father 'uncle' spurs some weird, uncomfortable almost psuedo-incestreous feelings in Trunks that he's fought hard to push back over the years, and he's sure that they'll be much worse for his parents.

Especially considering they played a larger role in raising Goten than Goku did for the first seven years of his life while Goku was off being all dead or whatever.

“I don't know. It's not like it's easy,” Trunks whines in a way that Yamcha always says is reminiscent of his mother in her youth. He can't think of an appropriate answer – having inherited his Bulma's genius but Vegeta's inability to appropriately articulate anything involving feelings – so he just defaults to petulance. “Why don't you tell your mom and dad?”

“I already have.”

“What?” Goten's answer and the nonchalant way he says it takes Trunks by surprise, and he frowns.

“Yeah, they already know.”

“...”

“Trunks?”

“How...how did they take it?”

“Dad laughed. Said something about how he can't wait to be able to call your dad his brother-in-law or whatever. Mom cried about the potential lack of grandchildren, and only stopped when I told her we'd use Shenron to wish for some kids if we wanted 'em. She was okay with it then. Kinda. She did call you a delinquent a few times, but that's just my mom.”

“Oh.”

“Don't worry,” Goten says, leaning forward to plant a series of kisses along Trunks' jaw. “I made 'em promise not to say anything to your mom and dad till you've spoke to 'em.”

Before Trunks can say anything else a hand disappears down the waist band of his shorts, and all coherent thought flies out of the window.

-------

It's a strange sight; Bra is sitting at the table, swinging her legs and babbling inanely about something that had happened with Pan earlier in the day, while Vegeta is doing his best to listen to her as he's dealing with the babies. A piece of freshly chewed (and incredibly bloody) steak from his plate sits between his father's fingers as he attempts to feed it to a protesting Vegeta Jr., while his other hand is mopping up some messy rice-mixture from Letta's chin. Bulma is too busy shooting her husband a soft, sappy look to be any real help, and Trunks (sensibly) wants no part of dealing with the twins at meal time.

Then again, his father seems to enjoy being infinitely more hands on with the latest additions to his brood than he had ever been during the early years of Trunks' own childhood. Not that it bothers him, he's actually quite proud of his dad for growing up and seeing the value in something other than physical strength. But it's still unsettling in it's stangeness.

Now and again he overhears his father, a man once so passionately against displaying his feelings that he went without hugging his son for seven years, pleading with his mother to try for pregnancy number four and baby number five. To Trunks' eternal relief his mother always tells Vegeta that she's done; four babies is quite enough, thank you, and she's not sure she'd be able to wrangle any more super-strong alien half-breeds. Then again, Trunks also remembers her protesting against additional progeny before Bra. And the twins. So he can't really trust his mother when she says she's done this time.

And, an unfortunate consequence of being from a superior warrior race is enhanced hearing, so he knows (with an exaggerated shudder) that his father tries very hard to repopulate their species on a nightly basis. It's a shame that Vegeta has retired from long stretches of off-world training to give domesticity a go, because Trunks is pretty sure being forced to listen to the sound of his parents doing it every night is far more traumatic than any Big Bad that he's ever faced.

A normal person wouldn't have to worry about their parents continuing to pro-create well into their first born's late teens and early twenties. Then again, a normal person would probably have parents that look like, well, parents, and not a father who has been thirty-five for the last two decades, and a mother who looks young enough to be her own daughter.

While he has Saiyan genealogy to thank for his father's inability to get older, he suspects foul play when it comes to Bulma; one day the sky bled black and his mother – who had always looked fantastic for her age anyway – suddenly looked impossibly good for her age, and her bitching about the unfairness and aesthetic imbalance of alien DNA petered out.

Oh, and his father's tail had miraculously grown back.

The twins came along just over nine months later.

He dared not question it, of course, because he'd only be chewed out and punished by at least one, but likely both parents about how it wasn't any of his business what they used the Dragon Balls for. Still, it was difficult explaining to new people that the members of his family that looked young enough to be his siblings were in fact his mother and father, and those who looked more likely to be his own children were his newest siblings.

Goten's own parents are far less embarrassing; happily awaiting the birth of their second grandchild like regular old people.

Regular old people who knew about Goten and Trunks.

Oh, shit.

He can't really put it off much longer, because while Saiyan skin may heal faster than humans, Saiyan teeth are also a lot sharper, and the literal bite wounds that pepper his neck and shoulders after a particularly aggressive 'training' session with Goten are getting harder and harder to cover up. There's only so many outfits he can reasonably co-ordinate scarfs with.

“Mom. Dad. We need to talk.”

“Is everything alright?” His mom asks, somewhat reluctantly tearing her gaze away from her husband to alight on her first born. He must look like shit because her expression of bemused adoration immediately melts into one of pure Parental Concern, and even though he's technically an adult now (a fact debated between his parents because his father insists that Saiyans don't finish growing until their early thirties, and so trying to make Trunks move out now would be akin to child abuse) she stretches out a hand towards him.

“Yeah, I'm fine... it's just,” Trunks pauses, and it's honestly embarrassing that someone with an IQ as high as his own can't think of a more articulate way to string the words together. His father is looking at him too, and it gives Trunks a small glimmer of hope that the scowl in place is one born out of concern, and not anger. “I'm kind of... seeing someone.”

Vegeta snorts and turns his attention back to his own meal and the babies, and Bulma grins in relief. “Trunks, you scared the crap out of me! So, what's she like?”

Trunks squirms in his seat. “Well, it's not a she.”

All eyes are on him again, and even Bra – who is only six years old and unable to fully understand the weight of this conversation – is staring. Vegeta and Bulma exchange a quick look, but his parents are much better at reading each other than he is at reading either of them, so it's gone before Trunks can try and analyse what it means. No-one says anything, and it's getting suffocatingly uncomfortable, so Trunks clears his throat. “You know him, actually,” he says with a sugary sweet falseness that's nothing less than nauseating. “It's, uh, Goten.”

The confession is met with a few seconds of stunned silence, before the volcano that is his father erupts. Some sort of strangled growl that he's only ever heard Vegeta make in the midst of battle rips from his throat, and Trunks braces himself for the verbal onslaught he's been dreading ever since the day he realised he was in love with his best friend.

“Damn it, Bulma, what did I tell you?” His father hisses, much to Trunks' surprise. “What is it with you and Kakarot's spawn? First the other one and now you?” Vegeta slams his fist on the table, and both Bra and Vegeta Jr. mimic their father with glee. Letta is far too busy forcing food into her little mouth to care. “I thought I raised you better than this?”

Shocked by the turn of events, the only response Trunks can generate is that of a surly teen. “You barely raised me at all.”

“Shut your damn mouth, boy.”

“Yeah, shut your damn mouth Trunks,” Bra adds, confused but delighted by the chaos.

“Echalotte, what have I told you about your language?” Vegeta growls, pointing Bra a warning look.

“'Not in front of your fucking mother'. Sorry papa.”

“Good,” With Bra improperly disciplined Vegeta sticks his hand out, palm up, towards his wife, repeatedly curling his fingers inwards. “Hand it over, woman. Twenty thousand zeni.”

Bulma slaps the hand a way but does mumble something about getting it out of the safe later, and Trunks is having a hard time keeping up because not only did he just come out to his parents, but he admitted to fucking the son of his father's arch-rival and previous hit-list number one, and no one seems to care that much. His brain, slow to catch up, focuses on a particular point, and Trunks feels his brows pull together in bewilderment.

“Wait, what do you mean 'first the other one'?”

Bulma and Vegeta exchange glances again. “You should tell him,” his mother says. “You were the one to work it out.”

“Only because we spent a year together in that damn chamber,” Vegeta concedes with a huff. His attentions turn back to Trunks, which is only fair given this was supposed to be Trunks' big reveal, and the situation has kind of, spectacularly, ran away from him. “Your other self was infatuated with the other Gohan. Because apparently Kakarot's runts hold some sort of mystic power over my own.”

“Wait, other me had a crush on Gohan?! How did you know?!”

“Please, it was obvious. He moped and sulked about Kakarot's eldest with the same sour look on his face as the weakling after I killed him and stole his woman.”

Bra is suddenly grinning from ear to ear, and her ki crackles excitedly around her. “Momma, did Papa kill Uncle Yamcha?”

“No,” Bulma says, shooting Vegeta a sharp, dangerous look.

Amongst the bickering Letta has fallen asleep, and Vegeta's tail has unwound from his waist to wrap around hers and pull her from her highchair and onto his lap. She, like Vegeta Jr., looks like a clone of their father, save for the startling blue eyes they inherited from their mother along with their older siblings. The fact that their father had actually cried upon seeing that at least half of his off-spring finally looked like 'real Saiyans' means nothing now, and the cold way Vegeta is staring at Bulma makes Trunks shiver. “Yes.”

“Liar! Yamcha was killed by Saibamen. Tien, Chiaotzu and Piccolo were killed by your friend, and you had your ass handed to you before you could kill anyone. In fact, the only people I actively remember you killing were the bad guys.”

“Your mother is a fucking liar, Echalotte, don't you listen to her. Before she trapped me on this miserable rock I slaughtered billions of people without hesitation.”

Bulma shrugs and rolls her eyes. “Didn't see it, didn't happen.”

“Guys, please. Focus,” Trunks pleads, desperately trying to get the derailing freight train back onto its tracks. “Dad, how long have you known?!”

Vegeta just shrugs. “A few years.”

“A few years?! Why didn't you say anything?”

“Why would I? I don't give a shit who you sleep with,” Vegeta pauses, his cheeks reddening, and when he speaks again it's through clenched teeth. “As long as you're being careful and they don't hurt you.”

An uneasy lull descends on the table once again, and meal time is pretty much fucking done because this is more important and Trunks kind of hates himself for not waiting until later, because the potatoes were really really good and he hadn't had his fill.

“I'll leave you boys to it,” Bulma says with a wink, blowing her husband a kiss, and even twenty years and four children later she's still able to make him blush like a schoolgirl. She leads Bra away, but not before she places Vegeta Jr., now also asleep, into the arms of his namesake.

Before she exits the room she plants a kiss on Trunks' forehead, and he can feel her free arm snake around his shoulders. “Honey, thank you for being honest. I love you.”

And then six Breifs become four.

It's somewhat picturesque, Trunks thinks, his father cradling two infants so gently, one head in the crook of each elbow, his tail swaying in contentment behind him. He's gotten soft in his old age, an it makes Trunks' heart shudder, some stupid, sentimental (and entirely human) part of him wishes he had a camera to capture this moment. He knows that this could have so easily gone awry, the tangent of existence where his father had never loved his mother and Trunks had grown up alone and half-orphaned a constant reminder that things weren't always destined to be good. But his father loves him now, loves them all.

Trunks isn't sure he appreciates that enough.

A silence stretches out between them, save for the quiet breathing and occasional mumble of the twins. It's strange how much quieter a room becomes the moment his mother and sister remove themselves from it.

“So, you've really known all this time?”

“Yes.”

“And you're not mad at me?” For fucking boys? For fucking Kakarot's heir? For fucking Kakarot's heir who happens to be a boy? “For, you know, being weak and choosing to date and stuff instead of dedicating my entire existence to training?”

His father looks awkward and uncomfortable, then again, awkward and uncomfortable are pretty accurate descriptors of Vegeta's constant state of being.

That and angry.

“Boy, the moment I began to care for your mother was the moment I set myself on the path to becoming stronger than I ever though possible. Love is not a weakness.” Quietly, almost silently, Vegeta adds, “Although pride can be.”

Trunks isn't sure he heard his father right, because he's sure that he just heard Vegeta – Don't Mock My Pride, I Am Vegeta - Prince of All Saiyans, The Greatest (albeit extinct) Warrior Race In All The Universe – say that pride is a weakness.

“For fuck sake boy, close your damn mouth. You look like a clown.”

Yeah, that sounds more like it.

“How?” Trunks asks quietly.

“My senses are much more sensitive, even than your own, and the two of you constantly reek of one another's scent. I'm also not a fucking imbecile, like Kakarot.”

“Uh, dad, Goku knows too.”

Vegeta looks mortified, completely and utterly betrayed, and it takes all of Trunks' strength not to laugh. “Mother fucker.”

“No. Regrettably, that would be you.”

“Watch yourself boy,” Vegeta warns, before his voice softens. “Are you serious about him?”

Trunks blinks. “What?”

If it weren't for the twins Trunks is sure his father would cross his arms and jerk to the side. “Goten. Are your feelings for him serious, or is he just a bed warmer?”

“Yeah,” he confesses. “They're pretty serious.”

“Then don't waste your damn time. Let me tell you something, and if you repeat this to anyone there isn't a Dragon or deity in all of existence that would be able to spare you from my wrath. I... cared for your mother while she was still with that idiot. I hated him and her for parading around in front of me when she made me feel... When she and I did start an affair I wasted so much time pretending I didn't. Even after we... It took so long for me to...” His father was clearly struggling, his face hot, and though the effort was admirable, Trunks half-hoped that this would just wrap up already so he didn't have to see his dad look so pained for much longer. “Look, just don't make my fucking mistake. If you care about the boy, don't dawdle. Because if you do eight years may pass and you'll only realise how good you have it while staring death in it's pink, fat face.”

Trunks doesn't know what to say, but luckily he doesn't have to think about it much because his father is handing him Letta and rising to his feet with Vegeta Jr pressed against his chest. “The cubs need to be taken to bed. Come on.”

Gently supporting his sister's head, he rises to his feet and nods.

“Dad?”

“Hng?”

“Thanks.”

“Tch.”

--------

Goten is tucked into the crook of Trunks' neck, playing a vintage handheld gaming device that he found in some quirky junk shop in downtown East City. They're sweaty and naked, the air around them thick and saturated with the odour of sex, and this is their new norm.

He doesn't know how permanent this is, just how permanent he'd like it to be.

From what Trunks could gather during the last fleeting (and highly illegal) visit, his future counterpart is in his mid-30's and expecting a baby with Mai. Vegeta and Bulma had taken the news that they were to be grandparents in an alternate reality in their stride, and Trunks himself hadn't given it much thought until now. Settling down with Mai seems so...weird and wrong.

Yet so does loving Gohan.

At times it feels like he has nothing in the universe in common with his other self, save for DNA and the love of his (their?) parents. They're as different as the sun from the moon, and sometimes it makes him contemplate the Nature VS Nurture argument, but more often than not Trunks just doesn't care.

Still, his lungs vacate and his heart falls out of rhythm when he even thinks about not being with Goten long term, and he really, really hopes that he's not destined to get his heart broken.

He looks at Goten, who has just had his ass handed to him by an 8-bit creature, seriously. “I love you.”

It's the first time either of them have said it aloud, and the rising compulsion to blurt it out is half born to purge himself of these nagging, frightening feelings, and half because of his father. Regardless of origin, Trunks means the three little words with all the sincerity his heart can muster.

Goten is quiet for a moment, and it only takes a split second for paranoia to get its claws into Trunks and he's internally scrambling for a way of withdrawing his clearly one-sided sentiment.

“Cool,” Goten says finally, apparently oblivious to the mental self-destruct button that Trunks had been on the verge of pushing. “I love you too.”

Every scrap of anxiety vacates his body, and his presses back deeper into his mattress – which is infinitely more comfortable than the floor of the Gravity Room. Trunks is sure that nothing Other World has to offer could possibly rival the ecstasy he experiences when his best friend's body is writhing against his own.

And there is nothing in the great beyond of existence that could possibly outshine the way he feels when he hears those three little words slip from Goten's mouth.

Chapter Text

“Oh no, you are not doing this to me. This isn’t fair!”

Maybe it’s because he’s (half) Saiyan, and alien DNA offers him bizarre powers of foresight, or maybe it’s because he met his adult self when he was only a baby (and countless times since, though Beerus, Whis and Jaco don’t need to know that little detail) and leaking timelines make things messy with untold consequence, but Trunks waking up knowing it was going to be ‘one of those days’ offers little in the way of a decent pay out when those anxieties prove themselves to be true.

Instead of relishing in the fact that he was right (again), all he can do is stare in open mouthed horror as his chocolate scoop drips down his hand.

“I can, and will,” his mother merely shrugs, while his father smirks maliciously into his own (rum and raisin) ice cream, batting Letta away from the dessert with a low, warning growl that’s more for show than anything else. The babies, as well as Bra (especially Bra) and himself have Vegeta wrapped around their fingers, even if he won’t admit it. Vegeta trying to establish any sort of hierarchy is a hopeless endeavour.

“No way, what am I supposed to tell Goten?”

“Same thing I’m telling you; you’re doing it, and you don’t have a choice.”

Trunks probably should have guessed that something was up when his mother and father stopped by unannounced, Bra and the twins in tow, and demanded that he join them to go get ice cream at the park. They’ve been pretty good with giving Trunks and Goten their own space, now that they’re officially living together. Except for when his mother comes over with demands for the company, and his father drops by to drag him into the Gravity Room. But overall they’ve been remarkably considerate of his privacy, which is completely unlike both of his asshole parents, so he’d put it down to personal growth.

Which is why Trunks had just assumed that their impromptu family outing had been one of the little kids’ doing, and Bulma and Vegeta were simply giving into their desires, but he’s clearly underestimated how conniving his parents can be.

He looks around for help, but the twins aren’t any use to him yet, and his little sister would never turn traitor against her widow’s-peaked, borderline-sociopathic hero, so it’s no use trying to get her on board either. Without Goten here to back him up, Trunks is sorely outmatched and he can feel his throat clogging with that realisation.

“There has to be someone else, anyone else?” Trunks tries, abandoning dignity to beg for leniency. “What about Gramps? He’s much more qualified for the job.”

Bulma sighs and flicks at the ends of her hair, growing visibly tired of the conversation. “Your grandfather is old and human.”

“But mom.”

“No buts,” Vegeta interjects sharply. Predictably he hands the rest of his ice cream off to Letta, who scales their father as though he’s a skyscraper and she’s an overgrown ape from a silver-screen flick (which she kind of is), to sit atop his shoulders. “You’re babysitting your brother and sisters tonight, end of discussion.”

Trunks groans in defeat, wishing he’d made the decision to just not open the door, and instead stay at home, vegetating under the duvet with a bag of chips and crappy TV, until Goten was done with his classes. It’s useless to argue with either of his parents when their minds are made up, so instead he chooses to deflect and gain some perspective.

“Fine,” Trunks grouches. “But I’m not happy about it, and you can’t ask us to babysit again for at least six months. I don’t understand why you can’t just throw them in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber and fish them out again later.”

At that Vegeta smirks, reaching out to ruffle his name-sake-slash-youngest-son’s wild hair almost affectionately. There are grey hairs beginning to nudge through at his temple, and the lines around his eyes are present even without his signature scowl in place. Recently there’s been traces of stubble shadowing his father’s jaw, salt-and-pepper in nature, despite Saiyan genealogy dictating that facial hair takes months, if not years to even peak through. 

It’s somewhat comforting to see his father finally start to look old. Well, older.

It’s not a drastic change, but given the fact that Vegeta has looked identical in every photo he’s been in for the last twenty-five years, Trunks will take what he can get.

“I did offer up that as a solution, but your mother refused to entertain the notion.”

“Damn straight,” Bulma says, her hands planted on her hips. “Could you imagine what those three would get up to unattended?”

Trunks doesn’t even want to think about what two nearly-three year olds and an eight year old with inherited temper issues, and an ability to bench press a planet could get up to if left up to their own devices. He remembers Piccolo blasting the exit to the Hyperbolic Time Chamber to smithereens, and knows that whatever Bra and the twins would get up to would make that look like child’s play.

They look so sweet and angelic, it’s almost hard to believe that they’re the combination of the two most stubborn, selfish, overdramatic people in the universe, and may have inherited a tendency to blow up a storm when remotely inconvenienced.

Bra’s tail is wound tightly with their father’s, and her attention is fixed solely on her ice cream, though she is courteous enough to offer Vegeta JR. the occasional taste, despite the toddler’s earlier insistence that he definitely didn’t want any frozen treats of his own.

“So, why’d you need a babysitter anyway?” Trunks asks, throwing the remains of his melted cone into a passing trashcan.

“It’s our anniversary and we needed some alone time,” Bulma offers.

“But you guys got married in the winter…”

“…Not our wedding anniversary.”

It takes a second, before he twigs it, but suddenly the date flashes up as coinciding with Yamcha and his mother’s breakup, with his father’s accident (read: ego-trip powered explosion), and Trunks has to physically reel back in horror because ew.

“Oh come on! You cannot be serious. That’s so gross,” Trunks grabs at the nearest sibling, who happens to be Vegeta JR., and clamps his hands over the boy’s ears to preserve his innocence. Vegeta JR. actually hisses at Trunks for his troubles. “Not in front of the kids.”

“Call it practice. For when you and Goten decide to start a family,” Bulma says with a casual wave of her hand, completely dismissing the emotional trauma that Capsule Corps.’ finest therapists will spend thousands of zeni undoing over the course of the next twelve weeks. “It’s healthy to spend some one-on-one time with your partner.”

“I do not need to hear about your one-on-one time. Dammit, I thought this would stop once I moved out!”

Vegeta’s lip turns up in a smug grin that tells Trunks more than he needs to know. He’s seen this expression on his father’s face before. In fact, he’s seen it several times before, and strangely enough each time Vegeta carried that look, Bulma would have an announcement to make several months later.

“No. Nooo. Not again!” Trunks recoils in horror, much to his father’s amusement, and can’t help but stab a shaking, accusatory finger at his mother. When he was a kid his father would get embarrassed at the mere thought of physical affection. Hell, he’d go cherry red if forced to admit that he loved the woman he’d been married to for over a decade. Now Vegeta is far too comfortable with emotions, and it’s becoming a problem. “Mom! You’re supposed to be the sensible one.”

“Shut up boy,” Vegeta throws in. Still smirking, still traumatising his first born. He pauses in his steps as lifts Vegeta JR. onto his shoulders to sit along sit Letta, and Bra grumbles in protest at the sudden stop. Trunks wishes, more than anything, to be that young and naïve again. His father shoots his mother a wicked, dashing smile, and Trunks wants to hurl.

“Guys, stop. You’re like sixty. This is just traumatic and abusive.”

“I am NOT sixty.” His mother and father say in unison, both looking appalled and on the verge of killing Trunks. He’d shy away their ire, but there’s too much Saiyan DNA rattling around inside of him and he can’t turn his back on a fight. No matter how hopeless and downright sickening.

“It’s been a long time since I murdered a child,” Vegeta muses, his eyes narrowing at his son. The tip of his finger glows with an orb of ki that Trunks knows could probably obliterate the entire planet if his father tossed it down. “I might need to re-familiarise myself with that little hobby of mine.”

Despite the threat the ki dims and dies, and Trunks can’t help but roll his eyes at the theatrics. “You guys are the worst. You don’t see Goku getting Chi Chi pregnant all the time!”

Vegeta grins. “Exactly.”

--------

Goten looks at the ensuing madness with a hopeless naivety that’s almost reminiscent of his father, though the likeness isn’t nearly so intense without the twinning haircuts. His hand reaches up to scratch at the back of his scalp, and Trunks feels a rush of guilt when he spies the hopeful Chinese menu and brand new video game clutched tightly in his boyfriend’s hands.

Classes wear Goten out in a way that beating an opponent bloody never could, and Trunks knows that he deserves time to unwind and just let off steam. He’s not academically inclined like Gohan, and he doesn’t have two super-smart parents to gift him with an effortlessly high IQ like Trunks does, but he works hard and that’s admirable. He wants to make everyone proud, even though Trunks burns with pride whenever he so much as thinks about his boyfriend.

“Uuh, since when were we babysitting?” Goten asks as Bra zips past him smelling suspiciously of smoke and melted plastic. The twins are currently disassembling the coffee table, while Bulma smooths out her dress over her thighs.

Vegeta, as always, has positioned himself against a wall, arms crossed over his chest, and is doing nothing productive to stop the destruction that his progeny unleashes upon Trunks’ house.

“Since my parents ambushed me and decided to be assholes,” Trunks grouches back, trying not to look and sound completely terrified. He’s never looked after all three of his siblings before, and it already looks like it’s going to be far beyond anything he can handle.

Bulma is rattling off a list of instructions, do’s, and don’ts, pointedly ignoring the fact that her youngest children are already very much breaking the rules, and occasionally interrupting herself to ask Goten about his new post-grad schedule, and press him for information about Chi Chi and Goku.

“You should tell that father of yours that it wouldn’t kill him to come and visit once in a while. Honestly, he’s always been the same…”

Goten is taking it all in his stride, Trunks notes, and he feels a swelling bubble of adoration that his boyfriend is dealing with this so well despite being ambushed and exhausted. He makes a mental note to allow Goten free-reign with any of his desires for the foreseeable future to make up for this shit-show of an evening.

Well, almost any. He might still veto the thing with the chocolate.

It just doesn’t sound sanitary.

“Es­chalotte. Vegeta. Letta,” Vegeta suddenly barks, pushing up from his brooding spot. The three half-Saiyans all stand to immediate attention, staring intently at their father. “Your mother and I are leaving now. Say goodbye.”

On command they line up to hug and kiss Bulma, while she peppers them in lipstick kisses intersected with demands that they at least try to be good , before planting a red-lipped smooch on Trunks’ own cheek. He tries not to pull a face or burn up with the sheer embarrassment of it all, but he’s also pretty aware that Goten is stood right next to him and wearing that goofy grin of his, and he knows this will be used as leverage against him for the foreseeable future.

It’s Vegeta’s turn to say goodbye, and he’s crouched in front of his youngest children with a very serious expression on his face that completely undoes the fact that he’s wearing a pastel pink button up shirt with overly-fitted trousers that have been altered to accommodate his tail. “Ysh varyr yr kratys yn yryk.” 

“Ysh varyr yr kratys yn yryk,” Bra, Vegeta JR., and Letta all parrot back, looking equally serious, their tails instinctively curling around their middles. Hearing the words inspires some hidden urge, and Trunks can feel his own long-gone tail coil tightly at his waist. Trunks expects his father to rise to his feet, but instead he’s glaring at Trunks with a demanding look of entitlement, and Trunks can feel himself growing hot again.

“Ysh varyr yr kratys yn yryk,” He manages to get out, though the words are much more clumsy on his tongue than his siblings. Underuse, he supposes, hasn’t had to say them aloud since he moved out, and with that he feels an unexpected twang of homesickness for the first time.

Vegeta finally seems satisfied and stands to join his wife, issuing Goten a quick nod of acknowledgement, before leading them out without further word.

“So,” Goten drawls, dragging the vowel as he dejectedly drops the take-out pamphlet and tosses the game onto the pile of books stacked on their breakfast table. He offers Trunks a tired smile that makes him look disarmingly handsome, and its only thanks to years of lessons on discipline and self-control that Trunks is able to get his heartbeat in check.  “What was that about?”

“I told you, mom and dad amb—”

“No, not that. That ‘ishy- far-er’ stuff.”

“Oh, that? It’s Saiyan. My dad taught it to us. He doesn’t like us speaking it outside of the family, but he used to make us say a few phrases back home. Mostly to piss mom off, I think.”

“Family, huh? Does that mean I’m family?” Goten chews on that nugget information with a soft smile that makes Trunks’ heart sing, and if wasn’t for the fact that his siblings are gathered in his living room like scrapping Tasmanian devils, he’d have showered the other man in kisses and dragged him to their room to show him just how much that statement filled him with joy. “What does it even mean?”

“’The honour I fight for is yours.’”                                       

It feels exposing, saying the words aloud, especially to Goten. He’s gathered from his father that the phrase is the closest thing the Saiyan language had to ‘I love you’, but it also feels like it means more than just love. He can’t quite put into words how it’s different, but he knows that if he were to say it to Goten – if he were to hear Goten say it to him – then they would be barging past a line that would be impossible to uncross.

He kind of wants to say it, but not with his siblings here to witness it, and not while Goten is mentally exhausted.

He kind of wants to say it, just to know if Goten will say it back.

He doesn’t want to say it, just in case he doesn’t.

Goten’s fingers stretch out to interlace with Trunks’, and he offers them a quick squeeze in return. “Neat.”

They’re interrupted by an almighty shriek, and Trunks looks over in time to see Letta clutching a tuft of bright blue fur, while Bra nurses a bald spot on her tail.

“This is only the beginning, isn’t it?” Trunks asks, mostly to himself, feeling the weight of the mammoth task ahead of him as it forces him (metaphorically) to his knees.

“Eh, I hang out with Pan and Chiri all the time,” Goten replies, decidedly more chipper. “How hard can it be?”

--------

Goten is busy flying around outside in search of the missing twins when Bra enters the living room, sporting bright blonde hair and a charred patch on her t-shirt, and Trunks can only stare at her in horror.

“Why is your shirt burnt?” He asks, hearing the hysteria in his own voice. It’s been less than an hour since his parents left and he can already feel his sanity fraying. He’s not saying he’s totally sympathetic with committing mass-murder, but he can kind of understand how and why his father was capable of committing genocide on the daily. He wants to blow shit up just to let off some steam.

“Because I went Super Saiyan,” Bra replies simply, brushing her thumbs over the damage.

“And why did you go Super Saiyan?!”

Bra shrugs and collapses neatly onto the couch that Trunks is in the middle of putting back together. For the third time. It groans under her weight, but somehow manages to hold up in spite of the abuse it’s been through over the duration of the last sixty minutes. She snatches the remote and changes to the nature channel where two lions are duking it out for mating privileges. To Trunks’ disgust, she claps to herself when the smaller of the two lions takes a chunk out of the challengers hide. “I dunno. I felt like it.”

“What does that even mean?!”

“Shh, this is the good bit.” On screen the fighting has picked back up again, and jaws are clamped around jugulars in a vicious death match.

Trunks contemplates choke-slamming his little sister through the floor, but isn’t quite ready to be murdered by his father, so manages to control his urges. Instead he takes a deep, shaky breath and tries to focus on finding Letta or Vegeta JR., but their power levels are just… gone, and all he can sense is Goten.

“Shit.”

Bra raises a golden eyebrow at him, still Super Saiyan for reasons unknown. “Mama says that’s a bad word.”

“Cut the crap, mom and Dad swear all the time,” Trunks says, lifting the rug to peek under it, blindly hoping that somehow the twins have learnt a technique that involves them being able to flatten themselves paper thin. His hopes are dashed when all that’s revealed is more dust than should be physically possible, and a battered old porno that he’d shoved under there before Goten could see a few months ago. “Thanks to mom and dad your first word was ‘asshole’, and I know you swear now.”

“Only around Papa. But he told me you can’t be trusted so to watch my tongue around you.”

“What? Why?” 

“Because you’re scared of Mama so you’d tell.”

It’s a lot to take in, but Trunks can’t really chew it over or digest it, because Goten’s ki is getting closer again, even though he feels worryingly alone. Though when his boyfriend bursts in through the window mere seconds later, double glazing unsurprisingly not quite able to withstand the pressure of a half-alien adult man, holding something wiggly and flame haired between his hands, Trunks’ confusion mounts.

“Found ‘em!” Goten pants, switching to hold the wiggly thing by its collar with one hand as he brushes glass and fragmented windowpane from his body with the other. “They were tryin’ to find the moon, apparently. Decided they wanted to go full King Kong on us.”

The child giggles to itself as it’s dropped at Trunks’ feet, and he has to bite his lip to contain the shriek of frustration. He’s been in death battles more pleasurable that this evening, and he’s pretty sure whatever his other self lived through in a world where Seventeen and Eighteen wrought havoc can’t possibly be as bad as the nightmare he’s currently enduring.

“’Ten, you know there are two of them, right?”

“Of course. Take a better look.”

Goten steps over the kid, scooting past Bra in the process, to stand beside Trunks and wrap an arm about his waist. Goten’s heartbeat is calm, but his ki is still erratically jumping about the place, bouncing between stressed, excited, and frustrated. Trunks’ can never tell whether Goten’s emotions just naturally flavour his ki so intensely, or whether or not they’re simply so bonded that he’s predisposed to picking up on the shifting tastes. Either way, he takes a moment off from worrying about his mother and/or father killing him for misplacing a child to press his lips against his boyfriend’s slightly sweaty neck.

Goten tastes of battle and sunshine; of bleak, harsh deserts and the bountiful oasis tucked away within them. His skin is rough, a patchwork of hidden scars that remain naked to the human (or Saiyan) eye; telling stories of intense training sessions, and wars weighted with the hope of the entire planet, or late nights crammed in the back of a hovercar getting a little too carried away.

Goten tastes and smells and feels like home, and Trunks wants to throw away responsibility to reacquaint himself with his favourite challenge.

But Bra is cheering on a bloodbath, and one of the twins is still missing, and if Trunks want to live to see himself turn twenty-five he has to act like a mature, well-rounded grown up for at least one night.

He pulls back to regard the present twin, only to feel his face immediately pull on itself.

There’s something off about the kid. Mostly because he can’t tell whether it’s his brother or his sister, but also in part due to the achingly familiar yellow and black ensemble that neither twin was wearing just an hour prior. 

“Oh no. Vegeta, Letta, what have you done?”

“I’m not Letta or Vegeta. I’m Veletta!” The toddler proclaims loudly, and from the corner of his eye Trunks’ catches Goten’s amused, but exhausted, grin. Trunks, however, fails to see what could possibly be entertaining about this current situation, and would rather face a million Frieza’s, Cells, and Majin Buu’s than ever babysit again.

“Oh my god,” he says as he sinks to his knees to meet Veletta at eye level. They offer him a sweet smile that’s completely undone by the fact that they escaped to fuse and make his life a misery. “Who taught you the fusion dance?”

“Pan and Bra,” Veletta replies, pointing a chubby finger in their sister’s direction. Bra sticks her tongue out in retaliation, but otherwise seems unphased.

“And who taught you the fusion dance?” Trunks asks his sister, trying to ignore the way Goten is snickering at his side.

“Mr. Piccolo. He said it might come in handy one day.”

Trunks can’t deny the logic is sound, after all, he and Goten were younger than Bra when they first learned to fuse. Still, they didn’t really have a choice, fate of the world on their shoulders and all that, whereas Bra’s never really known the overwhelming fear of annihilation. The world has been boring for quite some time now, and it’s been a long time since Trunks and Goten have had to pull out the Gotenks card.

The last time they’d used it had been for a sexual experiment, to compare the feeling of jacking off singularly vs jacking off a complete unit, but he didn’t need to share that little nugget of information with Bra. Their relationship had otherwise made fusing outside of a fight redundant; being with Goten so intimately, loving him so intensely and knowing that Goten loves him in return, felt like fusion but all the time. As if they were constantly linked in a way that wouldn’t dissolve at the end of a timer.

“On the plus side,” Goten says, squeezing Trunks’ fingers and refocusing his attention. “It’s one less child to wrangle.”

“I guess…”

Trunks presses his cheek against Goten’s shoulder in an attempt to ground himself. It works, and he can feel the tension beginning to drain from his body, just as he knew it would, because Goten is sunshine and light, capable of brightening even the darkest days. Trunks knows that one day he’s going to marry this man, knows it as though it has been destined from the moment he drew his first breath, but the gravity of that inherent truth is particularly overwhelming during moments such as this.

He might propose to Goten soon, though he hasn’t worked out the kinks and specifics yet.

There’s a blood curdling wail as the couch is tipped (yet again), and both Goten and Trunks whip around just in time to see Veletta crash into the TV, launched by the bright purple ki blast that hit them square in the chest. Bra is panting, aggressive yellow flames licking at her heels, her face bright pink in fury.

He might propose to Goten soon, if they survive the evening.

“What the hell just happened?” Trunks demands, while Goten checks to see if the toddler that’s just been blasted with the power of seven nuclear warheads is capable of standing. Veletta rises to their feet, albeit it wobbly, and presses its face into Goten’s chest. Trunks can see their bottom lip trembling dangerously, but luckily Goten spies this too because he starts the obsessive coddling before the tantrum can brew.

“Shh, it’s okay,” he coos, pulling the fused twins into a comforting embrace and rocking them back and forth. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“Bra wouldn’t share,” Veletta sniffs from Goten’s lap, wiping at their leaky eyes with a balled up fist.

“They changed the channel!” Bra shouts in apart explanation, motioning to the now destroyed TV.

“You guys are actually insane,” Trunks has to take a moment to try and absorb the absurdity that is his life, examining the ashes of his once neat and tidy (ish) living room with hysterical amusement. “Hey, Goten, if we ever have kids can we like… adopt humans. I don’t think I can handle this, and I have no idea how our moms and dads have done it.”

His boyfriend hums in agreement, staring mournfully at the molten remnants of his videogame collection while still nursing the product of Vegeta and Bulma’s poor decisions. Veletta has stopped crying at least, though their nose is snotty and Bra isn’t faring much better.

“How the hell are we going to get through tonight?” Trunks asks aloud, feeling himself grey prematurely. It’s rhetorical, mostly, but his boyfriend still attempts a reply.

“Remember when we were kids and your dad…” Goten trails off to make a sharp slicing moment with his hand, eying the kids pointedly.

“We can’t… can we?” Trunks asks, eyes wide. It would certainly make things easier, but he’s pretty sure his father would put them in the ground, use the Dragon Balls to resurrect them, and then bury them again just to hammer home the point. His hypocrisy knows no bounds. 

“It would be for their own sake,” Goten presses. “To keep ‘em safe.”

“Their safety does come first.”

--------

Bulma lets out a contented sigh as she pockets the freshly capsulated plane, thrilled that her husband agreed to walk the rest of the way to Trunks and Goten’s apartment in what could be considered, to humans who aren’t emotionally stunted weirdos, a romantic stroll.

Despite his pouty little insistences that this was all for her, Vegeta seems content enough to take her hand in public – something that he’d have never done during the first few (dozen) years of their relationship, and his pace is slowed to match hers, their shoulders gently bumping. His tail unwinds from his waist to bob contentedly in the air behind him, occasionally swaying in her direction to playfully bat at her arms (and, when he was sure no one was looking, ass).

Life feels good.

He’s so different from the wild, cartoonishly blood-thirsty creature that crash landed on her planet with every intenti9n of killing her and everyone else; so much so that sometimes it’s difficult to even consider them the same person.

Bulma wonders, occasionally, whether or not he regrets all the billions of lives he must have taken while destroying entire planets, whether or not he feels truly remorseful for the deaths he actually enjoyed now that he actually possesses a conscience. She thinks he might, in his own way, but she also thinks he’s a warrior built specifically for war, and so it’s literally impossible for him to feel anything too negative about the blood he’s shed.

“I can’t believe it’s been twenty-four years already,” Bulma says quietly, enjoying the cool night’s breeze against her skin.

“Twenty four? Already?” Vegeta replies, a thick dark brow quirking up in question. It’s funny that all of their children have inherited that same look of almost bored, haughty curiosity. She likes it. “I hadn’t been keeping track.”

Had their relationship been different perhaps she would have flown into a rage, hell, she’d threatened to dump Yamcha for less, but she takes it in her stride. Marrying an alien with a habit of locking himself away in rooms ungoverned by time and space they know it has mellowed her out slightly, and she understands that Vegeta’s brain just doesn’t work in that way.

“Yeah. I’m as surprised as you are, I was sure one of us was going to kill the other by now.”

Vegeta is quiet for a moment, his footfalls slowing, and Bulma glances his way only to find him staring wistfully up at the stars.

He does that a lot, she’s noticed. Almost always looking intently at one specific, vacant spot in the sky, and although he’s never verbally confirmed her suspicions, she knows deep down in her heart that Vegetasei once dwelled there.

“Are you okay?” she asks, tugging at him gently.

“I was with that bastard for twenty three years,” Vegeta replies so softly that she barely catches the words, though her heart stutters when she’s able to process them. Vegeta doesn’t talk about his life under Frieza often, though she suspects that’s due in part to him not wanting to open up a floodgate of feelings that even the best therapist that planet Earth has to offer would be underqualified to deal with.

Having your royal title stripped from you, your entire species ruthlessly slaughtered, and being orphaned at five years old is a lot to deal with, and she’s not sure that Vegeta will ever find a healthy way to work through his issues. She also knows that some sort of abuse went on, prior to Frieza killing him; knows he must have been beaten and batter for his power level to jump so far ahead of his comrades’ and for his bitter hatred of Frieza to gather momentum even before he learnt the truth behind his planet’s destruction.

Bulma knows, but she won’t ask. She loves him too much.

“He stole twenty three years of my life,” Vegeta continues. “Humiliated me, mocked me, robbed me of all that I had, and all that was promised to me. He took the very air from my lungs… I hated that my life would be forever dominated by his shadow. Yet you’ve stuck by my side for twenty four. You’ve given me all that he took from me; a home, wealth fit for royalty, a royal bloodline, the best training facilities that the entire galaxy has to offer. You willingly gave twenty four years of your own life in exchange for twenty four of my own. I never would have thought that possible. You won. You beat him.”

She can feel herself tear up, and she would cry if not for the fact that Vegeta hates any show of emotion akin to pity thrown his way, and that she can see Trunks’ apartment. So instead she says nothing, but when she lifts Vegeta’s hand to plant a kiss on the scarred skin, his tail winds around her wrist and she knows that he’s aware of just how happy his little revelation has made her.

--------

Their apartment isn’t quite the warzone Bulma imagined it would be when she first entrusted Bra, Letta, and Vegeta JR. into Trunks and Goten’s care.

She could smell the distinct smoky hue of freshly charged ki and melted electronics from the moment she’d entered the 30ft radius of her son’s home, but there were no obvious major disasters (save for the broken window) visible from the outside of the building, so she’ d taken that as a good sign.

Vegeta is the one to silence her as she lets herself in, cupping her mouth with his hands before she can bellow a greeting out at her brood of little half-humans.

“Don’t.” 

She almost tries to pry his fingers off so she can give her husband a piece of her mind for daring to tell her not to do something, but stops short when she notices the picturesque scene that has captured his attention.

Among the rubble and ruin (comprising of the carcass of a television, an obliterated coffee table, and the remnants of the broken window) are five tranquil bodies piled onto the (very battered) couch. Trunks’ head is on Goten’s chest, lavender hair splayed around him like a halo, with one of Goten’s arms holding him in place. Her oldest son is smiling in his sleep, and she hasn’t seen him look so peaceful in years, not since he was a new born baby.

Bulma’s breath hitches in her throat, and she has to clutch Vegeta’s palm tighter to her face to prevent herself from making an ungodly sound that would be sure to disrupt the angels sleeping before her.

She has travelled to distant worlds and watched her loved ones defy death time and time again, but Bulma has never really believed in fate until this moment. She’s so sure though, as she watches her son sink into contentment, that they only reason she met Vegeta, and the Goku met Chi Chi, is so that these two boys would be born and find one another. It’s strange to think that had she not shot Goku in the face as a kid, things could have been so different.

That the entire cosmos would have spun on off-kilter, and these precious boys, surely born from the fragment of stardust at the beginning of it all, would have never have found one another.

As much as she loves her husband with every fibre of her being, she’s sure that whatever they have together pales in comparison to the perfect harmony that unifies Trunks and Goten. She can’t imagine anything being more powerful, wish-granting dragons and friendly alliances with actual gods be damned, and as a mother she inherently understands now that her child has found the person he’s supposed to be with.

She’s not really sure how she’s missed it before, how for all of these years she’s been blind to the way that these two boys are the only two creatures in the entire universe who are truly meant to be together, but she’s suddenly overwhelmed with emotion because her son is so lucky.

She’s always known that Goten and Trunks shared some kind of magic connection, but it’s never really made its true nature so apparent until now, with Goten’s arms protecting Trunks from anything that life may throw their way, and Trunks using Goten’s heartbeat as his own personal lullaby. 

“They’re in love,” Bulma mumbles into Vegeta’s hand, as though this is brand new information. As though they hadn’t spent their entire lives drifting towards an inevitable romantic entanglement. As though she hadn’t purchased them a sizable first home when Trunks said he wanted to move out. As though she hadn’t spent months comforting her sulking husband every time she caught him sitting alone in the room that had once housed their firstborn.

Vegeta snorts and rolls his eyes in response, but there’s a gentle quirking of his lips that suggests that maybe he’s feeling what Bulma feels too.

“Come on,” Vegeta says, removing himself from his wife. “Lets grab the cubs and go home.”

Bra, Letta and Vegeta JR. are in a tangled heap at the boys’ feet, their tails all intertwined like mice, and Vegeta scoops them up as a ball, somehow successfully managing to avoid waking any of the sleepers. He hesitates for a moment, while juggling his snoozing brood, before utilising the dexterity of his tail and using it to pull a blanket over Trunks and Goten.

He leaves without further word, passing Bulma with an expression of amusement that has scared the shit out of her friends on countless occasions, but she knows is a display of genuine happiness. 

With one last look at the boys, Bulma turns to join her husband, content with the knowledge that regardless of what could ever happen to her and Vegeta, her boy will be safe, and hoping that her other three children could maybe be half as lucky one day. 

Fanart by Rutbisbe